


What Happens Tomorrow

by Miz_Bluebird



Category: Tron - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Dark, Darth Tron, F/M, Het and Slash, M/M, So many tags, may contain trace amounts of Jordan Canas, more characters than tags, omg Kleinberg is in this one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-05
Updated: 2013-07-05
Packaged: 2017-12-17 14:41:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/868712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miz_Bluebird/pseuds/Miz_Bluebird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>We're not here because we're free. We're here because we're not free.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Happens Tomorrow

**Author's Note:**

> The ARG exists solely to provide this story with delicious heartache...I mean flavor text. (I mean heartache.) Apologies in advance for missing or altered details.

It was a dark and stormy night, but that was every night, on the Grid. Flynn arrived late and hit the freeway, racing for the wilds of the Outlands against the clock--pretty much business as usual. There was so much to do, and time had never liked him. 

If he'd had a dollar for every new planner, organizer, or watch he'd bought or been given over the years, he'd never have needed to hack the Encom mainframe in the first place. Credit for his work would have belonged to him from the word go. Then again, nothing cool ever would have happened to him, either. If he were Mr. Punctual, he would have spent his working life leaving wind-up toys in Bradley's popcorn and rearranging the surface of his desk twice a day--the results of which were consistently awesome, but had hardly put them on speaking terms. Lora would've figured it out, sooner than Alan ever had, and then he'd actually be sorry: he'd just never see either of them again, and they'd take Kleinberg with them.

And the arcade? Forget it. Place probably would've folded, if Flynn were half as focused on his real job.

Instead, he'd been on the adventure of his life--met Tron, mourned Ram, kissed the hell out of Yori, and kicked serious MCP ass. And if nobody quite believed him, that was for the best. He'd spilled the whole story--at least, the less crazy parts, and as a dream, to keep from being gently marched home in a straitjacket. And everybody thought it was a game! So he sold them a game. He sold the world a game with Alan Bradley's face on the box, and overnight it made them into the kind of creative team Omni and Newsweek wrote headlines about. It also made him CEO of the company he used to push code for.

On balance, Kevin figured it was just as well he couldn't set a watch. Results were what counted in life, and his were always spectacular. Besides, everything always worked out. He made it work, or he threw it out and came up with something new. This time? Well, it was going to be a bit of both.

He'd put Tron on watch, made sure he was busy, before nicking a very particular lightcycle. Flynn had his own, of course--Sasha was solid chrome, bold and sleek and all horsepower--but time was of the essence, here. He'd needed something _more_. So he'd strategically borrowed from Able--his newest, his baby, cadmium white with silver trim. Tricia was all curves and throttle, and Flynn hoped to have her back and racked in the garage before his lead mechanic noticed anything was missing.

He'd sort of have to be back before then, anyway, or the portal would shut down with him inside, and then they'd all have bigger problems.

He waved to the Security tower as he sped past, roaring through the beacon checkpoints that marked the main freeway, and kept going, long out of the city limits. He drove until he was far from anywhere, sped far out past the Sea, to the slick, blank edge of the world. He had six hours to make it back, and only a reasonable estimate that he could raise new life in three. He was the uncontested master of the last minute, but time kept getting away from him. He couldn't beat the clock, never could, never would, but he could make it irrelevant: all he had to do was be in two places at once. And he was about to have the solution for that.

Still couldn’t tell anyone, though. Not yet. On the outside, it would sound ludicrous--like another timer, another watch, an overstuffed and very expensive scheduler. And he wasn't ready to show off the Grid itself yet, either. Oh, not to the Encom suits--not _ever_ ; he was not a moron--but it wasn't finished, didn't have the sheer vibrancy of the inner world he'd first experienced. His system was still very much in development, boasting only one major, central city cluster. 

When he called Lora to show her the results of her 'scrapped' project, and when she finally dragged Alan over, too, Kevin wanted everything in order and in top shape. And Jordan? He owed half his inspiration to her--to her towers of glass and concrete, to her knowledge of light and reflected light, of how it should act and scatter when it hit a solid surface. She made those things real, in practical terms, in solid material. Before he showed everything to _her_ , he wanted it to be perfect. He wanted it to be theirs. 

Of course, before that ever happened--well. There was the slightest, most remote possibility that the Grid itself would decompile under the unique demands of this newest project. That was why he hadn’t exactly notified Shaddox, hadn't breathed a word to Tron, and couldn't just _ask_ to borrow Tricia. He'd have to explain, and he knew from experience it wouldn't go so hot. There was no point in starting a panic when he wasn't sure he could even get this to work in the first place. 

Besides, if he failed, it wasn't like there'd be anyone left to yell at him. 

He drove until he hit snow, then ice, then the skids, and kept going. When the world flattened out, he stopped, cold white drifts spinning to a halt in his wake. This far out, there wasn't even a breeze to get them going again: the function's target area didn't map this far, leaving the world in one steady white blanket of 'snow,' binary waiting for declarative structure. It was still and cold and impassable for programs. He was alone with his thoughts, out here. He could have raised an army of Bits with a flick of his fingers.

Instead, he knelt down and called to the underlying structure, the _grid_ of the Grid. He aligned his chosen starting points with the existing map and slowly fed it power. The landscape rippled, flexed under him shifted black, mirror-smooth. The surface was glassy and slick and cold to the touch. He pressed down, reaching inward at the same time.

He was thinking of that morning at the hospital--was it already yesterday? He'd gotten one hell of a traffic ticket and scared the socks off the receptionist, but he'd made it in time for the ultrasound. He reached down into the Grid and thought of his future, outlined on that monitor in grainy green. He thought of the tiny hands, too new and small to even make fists yet, the spine bright like a string of pearls. He thought of the way Jordan lit up, laughing, when the doctor explained how to tell it was a boy--that he was a boy--their boy. Their son.

Those images had brought it all home: this was no game. He was gonna be a dad. They were gonna be a family, and that meant no more secrets. It meant no more double life, no more coming down here on his lunch break, no more sneaking down to the arcade basement at the crack of dawn. 

Something had to give, but he couldn't just quit--he couldn't just leave, not now that he knew programs were _people_. Not when they were counting on him. He'd just have to be all things to all people. And now he'd found a way to make that happen.

He stood slowly, rocked back on his heels and rose to his feet, and the Grid followed him, flowed straight up under his fingers. The surface slid and grew, formed a mirror that angled up out of the floor, waiting. He'd written most of this program from the outside, and done what he could ahead of time, but this last would take a personal touch.

He couldn't just write it, even though he'd checked and double-checked and knew it was right. It had to be better than right--even better than _right the first time_. He held on, and the mirror watched him, and he willed it into place. He breathed in and thought about exactly how it would work, how everything had to come together, just so. He thought again, unbidden, how lucky he was that Jordan had said yes; she'd never worn that enormous firecracker of a diamond he'd insisted on, but she was never without her wedding band, trim and gold.

Flynn shut his eyes and breathed out against the glass. Algorithms bloomed in the darkness, terms resolving in neat rows behind his eyelids, rank and file. He knew when they were done. He knew, when they were complete, that they were flawless--they were whole, without error or rounding, within as sharp a margin as he could ever hope for. When he opened his eyes, he was staring back at himself, at more than his reflection. When he reached into the glass, he rose to meet himself, hand-to-hand in mirror image. They touched palms and stepped forward together, as one.

_Hello, world,_ he thought, but what he said was,

"You are Clu." 

It hadn't fit until he said it--his best hacking program, some of his best work, and the starting point of the biggest adventure he'd ever been on. It was a good name. It fit.

"I am Clu." The program pronounced this as given fact, with a slight forward nod of his head.

They were not exactly alike. Clu, being a program, was a little smoother all over, everything matching and tucked in, cuffs and collar perfectly turned. Even his hair was different, slicked flat to his head like he'd just stepped out of the shower.

Flynn considered that, grinning, and _knew_ what Clu's purpose was going to be.

"You will create the perfect system."

 

Mornings waited for no man, and Flynn knew that better than most. He lunged for the door and slammed the briefcase down just in time. The elevator door hit it and bounced to a stop, chiming as it rolled open. He squeezed in, punched Laser Bay II for good luck, eleven as in _crank it to_ , and fifteen, because that was the address of the meeting he was late for. Privately, he thought anyone who voluntarily woke before nine a.m. was secretly a robot, like, full-on Cylon, but half the board was from back east, and Wall Street--and therefore the world--ran on their time. At least it meant earlier coffee breaks. Now, if he could just remember the combination to the case--

"Mr. Flynn." That was Ms. Grable, his mature and classy steel trap of a personal assistant, one part schoolteacher and two parts Moneypenny. "You're late." 

Flynn blinked up at her as the maximum number of valid remaining possible combinations rattled to a stop in his head. He wasn't any closer to the right one, and he'd eliminated all the obvious values...

He blinked again and got as far as black ballet flats and taupe nylons over a killer ankle. 

"Morning, Betty." The only thing to do when caught looking was to grin about it. "It's eight-fifteen. Meeting's at eight-thirty. I am not late. Not yet."

She sighed. "Your upstairs has been ringing off the hook for the last hour. Mr. Hardington was very specific about the extreme importance of your presence." Her compact snapped open like the jaws of some small, bright-eyed predator. She squinted frostily at him in the glass. "I told him you were caught in traffic. As luck would have it, there was a pileup this morning."

"Did you run it by Mr. Hardington that I'm his boss, and that I only need to take the ravings of my CTO under advisement?"

"He said something about cowboy lunacy, Mr. Flynn." She frowned; the compact snapped shut and open again. "I'm afraid the interoffice connection was interrupted rather suddenly, when I hung up on him." Her smile was beatific.

"Seriously, Betty? You're the only person that's ever been able to follow my filing system. Please be careful." 

Flynn leaned into her mirror and tugged at his lapels to check the angle. They still were not straight, and no amount of pulling would ever make them straight. It was worse than prom. But Hardington was pissed--like he ever wasn't--and trying to mass votes against him yet again, and that meant desperate measures. Desperate measures meant breaking out the A for Effort Suit, even though it was the A for Effort Suit without his tie, because apparently Tab didn't dryclean out that well. 

He tugged at his collar. At least the wet-hair look was working out okay. Clu had the right idea, there. Borrowing it had turned out better than he'd expected. 

"Say," he began, "you wouldn't happen to know what time Alan--uh, Mr. Bradley--"

Ms. Grable shook her head. "Look behind you." 

He did. 

"Is that mine?" Alan squinted at him, sidelong, lips pressed to a thin line.

"The case? Good eye, Bradley." Flynn shrugged, then frowned in concentration, eyes heavenward and fingers busy on the lock. "Did you change the combo on this thing just for me?"

"Kevin," it was a long, slow sigh, bottoming out into a growl. "How did you get into my desk? You didn't make this poor woman--"

"Make her? Make her? Betty Grable is the only PA in Center City with a black belt in Tae Kwon Do." Flynn snorted. "I could not _make_ her do anything."

“Mr. Flynn.” It was a tiny, controlled sigh of longsuffering.

Alan frowned. "If you keep this up, they'll fire you. This is a crucial presentation, and we're working from your notes."

"Fire me?" Flynn scoffed. "Jesus, Alan! Did your parents never hug you, or what?"

He groaned. "Not before coffee."

"Well, that explains a lot." Flynn shrugged, did not touch his lapel, and included Ms. Grable with a wave of his hand. "Can you believe this poor man? They never hugged him before coffee. Tragic, really."

"By the way, Mr. Flynn?" Betty coughed twice, discreetly, and held down a grin. "Your wife called. You can duck out of your twelve-thirty to, quote, 'watch them wipe the floor with the Gund Partnership'."

That clinched it. Hydecker Designs was going to be the big name behind the brand new Encom Tower building. All those blueprints he'd managed to smudge with red wine and promises would be a reality. Jordan would become a household name in all the right design circles.

The blood, guts, and paperwork on Encom’s side had all been Alan’s. He’d made confetti of the lesser bids. There were cost savings tucked into every corner of this deal, and the new building would physically distance them from the marketing fallout still sizzling around the name 'Dillinger'. It wouldn't prove Alan's mettle as chief operating officer, but it was a splashy start, and it was gonna look pretty cool in the newspaper.

And Hardington would drop bricks. Big ones.

"Great!" It was a whoop. "Call her and tell her I'll be there. I wouldn't miss it for the world--oh." Flynn laughed. "Oh, man, I can't wait to stick this to Hardington. More specifically, Mr. Bradley, I can't wait for you to stick this to him."

Alan dodged the flying elbow of camaraderie, his grin slowly broadening into a smile. "You and me both." 

“Yes, sir.” Betty smiled back. For Alan, ladies always did. "Good luck at the meeting. I'm in archives for the rest of the day, unless you need me."

"No sweat," said Flynn. "In fact, unless you need the time on-property, take the rest of the day off. If anybody gives you trouble, send them straight to me."

"I'll do that! You have a lovely evening, Mr. Flynn." She grinned and nodded, practically bouncing out of the elevator when it finally reached the eleventh floor. Her smile was wider for Alan. "Mr. Bradley."

Kevin smirked. "So, _Mr. Bradley_ , about those minutes. Anything I should--"

"You didn’t read them, did you. You have no idea what you’re supposed to be doing." Alan sighed, but the smile hadn't left his face. "There are no notes. We're doomed."

"Relax, of course there are notes. The notes, the floppies, and every single handout--thing--we are gonna need." Flynn shrugged and adjusted his lapel. Again. "I put 'em in your briefcase!"

"Uh-huh." The smile vanished. Alan crossed his arms. "What did you do to my printouts."

"Waiting for you on the table. Told you I'd take care of it. Now, come on. It's harder to gloat when you're late, trust me."

Flynn dug it when Alan crossed his arms. It made him that much easier to envelop in a shoulder clasp. He sailed down the hall, Mr. Bradley in tow, and kicked the meeting room door open with an enthusiastic roar of,

"Greetings!"

 

The street was dark and quiet by the time he made it home. Flynn squeezed in through the side door and pocketed his keys, shoring up the box tilted on his shoulder with one hand. He caught the screen door with his foot, moving just in time to keep from spilling the box. He dropped it on the counter--louder than he meant to--and waited, tense in the dark, for signs of activity, for some hint that he'd disturbed the peace. He let out a long, slow breath, and took the continued quiet stillness as his license to go digging around in the fridge. There ought to be a cheeseburger in there somewhere; In N' Out was the only place still open around the time the in-laws had landed.

So much had happened in the past few weeks. He'd finished painting the nursery, the agreed-upon sea green instead of blue. It had taken a small forever to locate and order the exact shade in latex finish: her color choice, his insistence on less-toxic materials. He had redecorated her decorating--he liked to think of it as optimizing--picking at the details until she’d driven him from the room at the business end of a curtain rod.

Now that it was becoming harder for her to get around, they were both going slightly stir-crazy. Jordan had come home--had been sent home, even if the legal suits at Hydecker insisted maternity leave was a privilege, not a right--and now spent her waking hours preventing building disasters by phone. Just now, it was an intense battle with the platting board over zoning density, which was how Flynn had discovered that, yes, there were hard and fast limits to exactly how many skyscrapers there could be downtown, and forget about all the infighting that went into how high they could be. The sheer profusion of ordinance codes--the number of numbers involved in knowing who was in charge of what, and who could bend rules where by deadline--made him dizzy. Jordan handled it like a dream, smiling and laughing even as she coiled the phone cord in her fingers and mimed strangling the pleasantly patronizing voices on the other end. 

And her parents had arrived, just today. 

He could only imagine what they thought, meeting their visibly pregnant daughter at the airport without him. He'd been stuck in meetings for six hours, and spent another two just signing off on the unbelievable volume of paperwork that needed his personal touch and say-so. There was less red tape in his line of work than hers, but there were just as many squabbles, and they all got solved by formal filing of grievance. In triplicate. That left him a minimum of an hour a day rubber-stamping stacks of stuff too tall even to be skimmed. And even with Alan as his team lead, he had too much still to do at the end of the day. Even though they were hitting all their targets, he'd had to concede that they would finish _Space Paranoids Overdrive_ well behind schedule, and he did not look forward to explaining to the board what the delay was gonna do to quarterly.

On the bright side, Kevin figured, there literally weren't enough hours in the day for him to disappoint everyone. Even if he was really working on it. Some of the things Shaddox was telling him--when you matched those with Clu's misgivings about energy allocation in Theta Sector--

He paused, blinking into the bright white chill coming out of the fridge, and realized two things: he'd been standing there for at least five minutes, and there was no In N' Out to be had. There was, however, a mystery container, black Styrofoam, fancily embossed.

"We meet again, leftovers." He sighed. "You know, sometimes I think you're the only ones who understand m--steak? Oh, geeze." He hastily snapped the tray shut. It squeaked a little where he slapped it against the counter. "Steak. They had steak, to celebrate, and I wasn't there for--great."

Don was a pretty forgiving guy, but Cheryl had never liked him. He was pretty sure he'd rather handle the board. At least they listened to reason, as long as that reason was attached to profit somehow. She'd probably just smile, eyes glittering, and manage one of those cryptic backhands that were always compliments on the surface. He still wondered how she did it, and they'd known each other two years already. At times, it felt like centuries. 

He was trying to work out the exact ratio of anger to disappointment that Cheryl would likely manage to convey over coffee tomorrow with a simple “Good morning,” when it occurred to him--way too late--why it was so warm in here, and exactly how it was so easy to navigate the kitchen in near total darkness.

Near total. There was a soft, definite, golden-orange glow drifting in from the living room, and that meant only one thing. 

"Fireplaces need to be turned off, guys." He scooped up the steak and the stuff he'd brought in and jabbed himself with the silverware trying to balance it on top. He padded into the room, grumbling, "I know I'm chronically late, and I can't cook, and I don't deserve her, but that's no reason to burn my house down."

He dumped the stuff on the coffee table and started for the fireplace controls, only to be jarred out of his pity party by a low, soft yawn and a sleepy murmur from the sofa. 

"You're talking to yourself again, tiger." Jordan had been waiting for him, until she fell asleep. She was curled over one end of the sectional, a seashell-curve of drowsy limbs, hair bright in the firelight.

"I thought you'd be in bed." Even exhausted, she looked amazing. He sighed. "Sorry about dinner, babe."

She scoffed. "Kevin Orville Flynn." He raised both eyebrows at his full name, but she'd said it singsong, with a wide, wry smirk. "You have never been on time for anything in your life." 

"Orville? Wow. My own mother never called me Orville." He grinned and didn't stop moving. "I must really be in the doghouse."

"You're pacing. Sit."

He sprawled next to her and squeezed her knee. "Woof." 

"Good boy." She craned her neck and bit his nose in retaliation.

He twitched out of the way with a low, soft noise. "What do I get if I roll over?"

"Don't make me hit you with a newspaper."

"Just don't use the business section," he groaned, with a dramatic flop of arm against forehead.

She rolled her eyes, nudging him in the side with her elbow. "So what's in the box?"

"Huh?" He blinked in confusion and beamed just as suddenly. "Oh! I brought apology cupcakes."

"Trust me, I noticed." They were out of the cardboard and in her hand almost before he was done talking. She picked up the nearest chocolate sprinkle with a hum of interest. "They're still warm."

He did not mention that it was probably from the heat coming off the back of the sissy bar, because he wasn’t supposed to pull anything close to those speeds in a residential zone, and she worried. And he was already in the doghouse.

They sat like that for a while, sharing the steak. The cupcakes were hers. She drowsed a little against his arm, and he stroked her hair, and it was looking good indeed for him until she squinted thoughtfully at the empty wrapper in her hand. 

"So this was your clever plan?" She poked him. "Leave her with her parents, then bribe the pregnant lady with sugar?"

"Depends." He frowned a little. "Is it working? If it's not working, it was totally Alan's idea, and I apologize on his behalf."

"Mmm." She swabbed the last of the icing onto her finger and stuck it in his mouth; it was the one guaranteed way to get him to stop talking. "Give that man a promotion."

He demurred with a grunt, licking her finger when she wouldn’t let go. 

"In that case, I accept full responsibility, and damn the consequences."

"Do you?” There was a sweet, bright edge in her voice and a syrupy sheen to her smile that stirred in him an immediate pang of regret. “In that case--it’s late, Mr. Chairman.”

“True,” he said slowly, carefully, “but--”

“Uh-uh, no way.” She wagged a wet finger at him and continued. “Mrs. Chairman has the floor. It is late, and the guest room sheets did not get on the hide-a-bed by themselves, and you promised to take the garbage out.”

"Did I really say that?" It sounded like something he might have said, at some point, weeks ago in the heat of the moment.

"Full responsibility, remember?" She smirked and thrust the box at him.

He blinked. "...I did say that." 

Laughing, she leaned into him, and he helped her stand. 

She reached on tiptoe to kiss him. "I'll wait up for you."


End file.
